XO Report – April 27th

Rick led the group with two lectures this morning: an overview of life and training at Star City (Russia) and winter survival for returned astronauts and cosmonauts.

Ben took us through the EVA brief of a complex and long distance mission which was exploratory and included a search for life. The teams were split into two groups, ‘alpha’ and ‘bravo’ teams. Unfortunately, alpha team had to abandon their exploration mission early due to solar flare activity. A delta evacuation was called and alpha team returned to base after abandoning vehicles. Bravo team was able to complete their mission, despite briefly losing one crew member who became slightly confused and had wandered off. The lost crew member was in good health upon retrieval with no lasting medical issues. Appropriate decontamination procedures were followed for the arriving teams and base was able to give the all-clear following the event. No signs of radiation exposure in any of the crew members has been detected and they are all in good health.

Debrief covered some of the challenges faced during the EVA, in particular: navigation and consumables and solar flare risk.

Dinner was pizza which went down well.

Further discussion of the book ‘Dragonfly’ was led by Rick after dinner and we are looking forward to a bit of dessert.